The U.S. Supreme Court won’t hear a bid by a Catholic hospital to avoid a lawsuit over its refusal to perform a hysterectomy on a transgender patient who sought the procedure as a part of an attempted sex-change from female to male.

Catholic hospitals do not remove healthy organs for non-medical reasons.

The justices turned away an appeal by Mercy San Juan Medical Center, a Sacramento-area hospital owned by Dignity Health, and let stand a lower appeals court ruling that revived the lawsuit after the original trial judge had thrown it out on religious freedom grounds.

This means the case will proceed to trial in California, but the outcome may yet be appealed.

The hospital said it does not discriminate against transgender patients, but does not allow its facilities to be used for a certain procedures including abortion, sterilization and euthanasia, when not medically necessary.

Author and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Center on Human Exceptionalism, Wesley J Smith said this is a “potential catastrophe” for freedom of religion.

“Bottom line: If the jury returns a seven-figure verdict against Dignity Health — and this being the most woke state in the union, it well could — the verdict will declare open season on Catholic health care for trial lawyers,” he added.